Former chairman of the Transport Committee, has come out openly against the way the rationalisation of routes was implemented by his own party.

After failing to impress the people with its new city bus scheme and causing a major embarrassment to the ruling BJP within a short span of its implementation, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has set up a high-level committee to suggest ways to improve the scheme to suit the people best.

A staunch defendant of BJP actions in the AMC, Amit Shah, also a former chairman of the Transport Committee, has come out openly against the way the rationalisation of routes was implemented by his own party colleagues. He puts the blame squarely on the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT). He is upset, particularly with its former associate director Dr H M Shivanand Swamy, for “foisting” CEPT views on AMC. However, Swamy rubbished the allegation, saying ultimately it was AMC that implemented those suggestions. Swamy said that those given the job of implementing the suggestions, should have done so in a gradual manner. He said there was plenty of time, of about one year, to implement the scheme of route rationalisation.

Shah, besides blaming Swamy, also slammed the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Services (AMTS) officials and their political bosses for showing undue haste in implementation. According to him, there are many persons in the field who have sizeable experience in running city transportation systems. “They should have been consulted and taken into confidence before taking a hasty and abrupt decision that was to impact people’s daily lives abruptly and adversely,” he said.